


Object Permanence

by wizened_cynic



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babies, F/M, Gen, Grief, Kid Fic, Parenthood, Plot Devices, Walker doesn't even exist, callous disregard of canon, post season 12, probably some PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 12:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11646360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: This is probably not the best decision Reid has ever made. Post Season 12 finale, AU where Reid is the biological father of Cat’s baby. (Gen, Prentiss/Reid friendship, JJ being a guru.)





	Object Permanence

Reid doesn't love her, not right away.

He is mostly alarmed by how utterly irresponsible it seems, even to him, that he is trusted to take home a newborn infant and to keep her alive, when he's never even so much as been alone in the same room with one.

Taking into account his family history of schizophrenia, his problems with Dilaudid, and the fact that he was in _prison_ less than 6 months ago, letting him have custody of the child seems downright negligent.

"Technically, you don't have custody yet," the social worker tells him. She is in her late fifties, with silver hair cropped into a crew cut. She speaks with a clinical, detached air that makes Reid wonder how she came into this job and whether it is the job that has made her like this. "You've only been entrusted with the care of the infant pending your application for parental rights. But I don't anticipate any problems, with you being the biological father. The DHS is not going to oppose your application."

His lawyer is pleased with this news. "Have you thought about making a civil claim? On behalf of the child, of course. I think we'll find that the prison is desperate for this to go away."

"Why would I sue them?" Reid asks.

"Because your daughter is going to grow up without a mother. It enables her to make a claim for this ... irreparable loss."

"It's not a loss," Reid says.

"You should keep your options open."

 

 ######

 

There was really only ever one option.

The minute the DNA results came back, there was no other option.

Reid doesn't want to be like his father. Even if this is a child born out of revenge and hate, even if he still doesn't yet have any emotional connection to her, she is still his child and he can't walk away from her.

He knows this is probably not the best decision he has ever made, so he keeps it to himself for as long as he can. But he has to apply for leave and, more importantly, he needs advice on how to actually do this, raise a child, so he has to tell someone.

Reid chooses JJ because he only has two close friends with kids, and Morgan is in a different timezone. Also, JJ has two children, which means she would have a greater breadth of experience, no offense to Morgan.

JJ takes the news about as well as he would've expected, which is to say initially he thinks he sees a flash of something across her face that means, _I think this is a terrible idea_. But then she breaks into a huge grin and hugs him so tightly his chest feels like it might explode. "This is amazing, Spence. I mean, it'll be hard, but amazing. You being a dad, that's just —?"

"Unfathomable?" Reid offers.

"No, I can totally fathom it," JJ says. "But you're going to need a lot more coffee."

"You don't think I'm being selfish?" He feels his heart in his throat as the words rush out of him in a low whisper.

"Spence, why would you be selfish for wanting to raise your own child?"

"I just think she might have a better life if I didn't fight for this. She would have to go into foster care at first, but the social worker said she'd be put on a foster-to-adopt list and her foster parents would probably adopt her eventually."

Reid believes, deep down, that the baby would be better off raised in the suburbs by people who will attachment-parent and use cloth diapers and make purées for her from organic, locally-sourced vegetables, people whose lives haven't been tainted by loss and violence and the first-hand knowledge of the unspeakable things human beings are capable of.

They might even let her have a dog. Reid's apartment building doesn't allow pets.

"Reid, this kid is not going to be better off with anyone else. I can't imagine her having a better life than with you."

JJ sounds so sure of herself that Reid almost believes her.

"Now," JJ continues, seamlessly segueing into planning mode, "I've got a whole bunch of hand-me-downs I can give you. You'll need a car seat. They won't let you out of the hospital without a car seat. I'm going to assume, you being you, that you've already read all the books on parenting?"

"Not _all_ of them," Reid says, "but I've still got time. The books all contradict each other, by the way."

"Yeah, they're full of lies," JJ says. "You'll see."

 

 ######

 

Reid names his daughter Eleanor.

 

 ######

 

Nora comes home right before Thanksgiving. It is not so much about sentiment as it is about the hospital needing its NICU beds.

Chronologically, she is almost four weeks old, but because she was born early, she is two weeks behind.

She is splotchy and tiny and pink, and Reid knows it is right to love her.

He keeps her crib by his bed because studies have shown that babies who sleep in the same room as their parents are at lower risk of SIDS. He has stocked up on a dozen cans of the baby formula that most resembles human breast milk, and the night before she arrives, he uses up half a can doing a test run fixing bottles to ensure that he gets them to the perfect temperature. He has four Sophie the Giraffes, and he doesn't know where they came from. One of them might have been a gift, but it's like Sophie can clone herself.

Reid thinks he just might make this work.

Then, the first night goes horribly wrong.

Nora nearly chokes on her formula, and Reid's fears about aspiration pneumonia are only quelled when she spits up whatever milk she's actually managed to swallow. She cries the whole night, not squeaky kitten sounds but full-throated wails that no amount of rocking, or soothing, or shushing could calm down. Reid makes a clumsy attempt a swaddling her, which only sets her off even more. Nora is decidedly not the happiest baby on the block, and JJ is right, the books are all lies.

Nora finally cries herself to sleep in the crook of Reid's arm, which presents another problem. He can't move. He's afraid to put her down. Hell, he's afraid of breathing too loud or too fast because that might wake her and he just _cannot_ deal with her crying or the feeling of abject failure for one second longer.

So he stays in this position for what seems like hours. Just when he thinks he's got the hang on this, something damp seeps into his sleeve and he realizes that Nora's diaper is leaking. Reid decides to let it leak.

When Nora finally wakes up, she doesn't cry, and Reid feels like he's just passed his firearms qualification on his first try. He changes her diaper and gives her another bottle, and this time she doesn't choke. She does spit up all over the front of her sleeper so he has to change her into something clean, and that itself takes about ten years off his life. By the time she is settled in her crib and asleep again, Reid is covered in vomit, urine, and poop and there are several messages from JJ, all of which are along the lines of, SPENCE ARE YOU ALIVE???

I THINK I BROKE HER, he texts back. ALSO SHE PEED ON ME.

Nora stirs, and Reid readjusts his breathing. He switches his phone from "vibrate" to "silent" and almost misses JJ's next message.

IF SHE IS PEEING ON YOU SHE ISN'T BROKEN. YOU'LL BE FINE.

 

 ######

 

At Nora's 6-week check up, the pediatrician frowns. Reid's heart sinks.

"She's not gaining weight." To her credit, Dr. Huang does not sound as though she is judging him.

Reid wants to cry. He actually does cry. At least, he can feel the pinpricks of tears gathering and his nose burns as he tries to dry-swallow his feelings. He's so tired, he's so fucking tired, he doesn't remember the last time he had a shower and all his clothes are stained with baby vomit, but he believed, at least until 10 minutes ago, that he and Nora were managing.

He thought he could do this, but apparently not. His daughter is starving before his very eyes.

The doctor picks up on his distress and moves closer to him. Reid steps back and tightens his grip on Nora.

"It's not uncommon for babies to lose weight at first. Nora's had a particularly rough start so she needs some time to catch up. I'll see you two again next week, all right? We'll see how it goes. Chances are, she'll be absolutely fine."

Reid cries on the drive home from the clinic in his ancient car that doesn't even have a LATCH system for the car seat. The heat is broken. He hasn't felt this helpless since Diane Turner held a gun to the love of his life, and he's worried that by virtue of him loving Nora, he has condemned her to the same fate.

Fat drops of rain splatter against the windshield. It's supposed to snow later this week, but right now everything is just cold and wet and gray. Reid's face is heady and hot from crying and the rest of him is freezing.

When he gets home, he calls his mother. It is one of Diana's good days, so not only does she remember her son, she also remembers her granddaughter.

"You've been crying, Spencer," she says. Not a question, a statement. How does she even know? Reid wonders. It's not like she can see him, and he thought he had mastered control of his micro-expressions and tonal inflections decades ago. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything is fine. Nora was crying and she looked really sad, so I started crying too. I don't know why she's crying."

"She doesn't need a reason to be crying. You cried for seven weeks straight, Spencer. Whenever you weren't asleep, you were crying. I tried everything. You just wanted to cry. I thought I was going to die from listening to you cry. Then one day you stopped. I thought something was wrong with you, so I took you to the doctor and asked him why you weren't crying. He said you were a good baby."

"Nora is a good baby," Reid says.

At the sound of his voice, Nora turns her head towards him and smiles.

Just like that, Reid forgives the world for everything. He forgives it for the way it has failed him. He forgives the existence of war and bigotry and online bullying and Fox News, he forgives Catherine Adams, because without her Nora wouldn't be here, because even though Nora pees on him (which, to be fair, rarely happens now that he switched to another brand of diapers) and doesn't sleep and screams whenever he tries to put a hat on her, she is a good baby, and she is  _his_.

Reid suddenly has the urge to confess everything to his mother, how he had forgotten to clip Nora's nails once and later woke up to find her with a long scratch on her cheek, how he had spilled coffee on her when he was holding her and trying to drink it at the same time. The coffee was cold, but still.

How, when he is waiting for Nora to fall asleep in the dead of night, he worries that she may grow up to be schizophrenic like her grandmother. She may grow up to be a psychopath like her mother. She may grow up to be a genius like him and be teased mercilessly in high school and one night when she is 16, he will find her in her bedroom with her wrists slit clean open to her forearms.

He worries that Nora might survive her adolescence and go to college on scholarship and offer the wrong person directions on her way to class and end up raped and left to die in a beer-soaked alley. He worries that when he might not even know she goes missing because they had a falling out and haven't talked in years.

Reid has always protected his mother, so instead he just tells her what Dr. Huang said.

"You had this problem too," his mother says matter-of-factly. "She's not eating enough because she's spitting it all up, and she's spitting up because she's sucking in too much air when she eats. You need to hold her upright, Spencer. Make sure the milk fills the nipple when she's eating."

His mother is right, of course,  and Nora gains a whopping three ounces when Dr. Huang weighs her again. She still has a long way to go, but she and Reid, they're managing.

 

 ######

 

Nora grows.

She starts fitting into her clothes instead of swimming in them. She learns to hold her head up by herself. They fall into an easy rhythm of eating and sleeping and walking around the block so she gets fresh air. Reid reads her The Iliad in the original Greek. She sleeps three, four hours at a clip. Even when she wakes up at night for a feeding, she doesn't cry. Reid's body senses her stirring and knows to haul itself up, and he usually manages to get the bottle to her before she raises her voice, even if his mind is still more than half asleep.

In a way, it reminds him of the stretch of time right after Tobias Hankel, when his body knew how to just barely get out of bed and go through of the motions of the day, his mind empty and numb.  It feels every bit just as endless.

The difference is his daughter.

Once Reid gets used to surviving on the bare minimum amount of sleep that keeps him from losing his mind, he actually enjoys the time he spends with Nora in the doldrums of the night. Everything is still. The world stops for the two of them and the warm, fragile weight of Nora's body in his arms anchors him to the universe.

Nora likes to fist his shirt as she eats, one hand closed against his chest and the other wrapped around her bottle. Reid knows he will never use Dilaudid again because the sweet, milky scent of his daughter's head is more potent than any drug in the world. He has no use for painkillers ever again.

Right after New Year's, he takes Nora to the BAU. JJ and Garcia have met her already, but not the others. Reid is strict about visitors at his home. Nora's lungs are not so good and he can't risk her getting an infection. The team understands.

As soon as Garcia has her hands on the baby, she declares she is never giving Nora back. "She's mine now. My little baby girl genius, look at you. How are you so teensy-weensy and so totally adorable?"

Nora drools indulgently, not used to being spoken to in baby talk.

Rossi claps Reid on the shoulder and asks, "How are you feeling?"

"I feel tired and broke," says Reid.

"Daughters." Rossi nods in understanding. "Before you know it, you'll be buying her a pony."

"I can't afford to buy her a pony."

"Then I'll buy her a pony."

"Who's buying who a pony?"

Reid turns around to see Emily there, file clasped under her arm. It seems like a lifetime has passed since he last saw her. Their last interaction was strictly administrative. She approved his resignation within an hour and wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation, but has never asked to come see the baby.

"Rossi's buying my daughter a pony," Reid tells her.

Emily laughs and puts her arms around him, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug. The file drops onto the floor. His eyes instinctively land on a crime scene photo and he flinches at the sight of a dismembered torso in a moderate state of decomposition.

Alvez hurries over to pick up the photos as Lewis tries to change the subject. "I think Nora looks like you, Reid."

"It's the eyes," JJ chimes in. "You should see her begging face. It's exactly like Spencer's."

Reid scowls. "I don't have a begging face."

He catches Emily looking at Nora, then shifting her gaze immediately when Nora looks back at her. Reid is startled, and a little hurt, by how Emily is avoiding his daughter. He considers commanding Nora to put on her best begging face, but Nora is more interested in sucking at a clump of Garcia's hair.

"I've got some reports to do." Emily hugs him again, but this time her embrace is stiff. "Reid, good to see you again."

"This is going to sound really petty," he says to JJ later, because JJ is his guru these days and because Michael is not sleeping either, his molars coming in, "but why doesn't Emily like my baby?"

"That does sound really petty," JJ says. Over the phone, Reid can hear her shuffle Michael onto her other arm. "Maybe she's not comfortable around a newborn. They can be scary. They're vulnerable and floppy and you worry you might hurt them by accident."

Reid grudgingly admits that is a reasonable explanation. Newborns are scary and vulnerable and floppy.

Nora makes peeping noises which means she wants his full attention, so he gives it to her. He places a stuffed zebra on her middle and walks it up from her diaper to her neck and she coos like a dove.

Reid studies his daughter for a long time, trying to find any resemblance to himself. Truth be told, Nora _is_ cute, possibly the cutest in the world, but she is cute in a generic way that all babies are cute. Now that she has put on weight, she is all chubby cheeks and big smiles and marmoset eyes. Her eyes are hazel, like his, but her hair is blonde and fine. That might be his as well. His mother says he was blond until he was six or seven, but Reid doesn't remember any of this.

Apart from hair and eye color, Reid doesn't think Nora looks like him. He doesn't think she looks like Cat either, though it's hard to say. It's not as if he has any childhood photos of Cat Adams to compare.

He likes to think that Nora looks like herself, just Nora, and she doesn't have to be burdened with either of her parents' legacies.

Nora falls asleep before she is even halfway through her bottle, tuckered out from the excitement of her first day at Quantico. Reid doesn't bother to change her out of her onesie, which happens to be one of the few non-pink items that she owns. It is navy and says FBI in yellow letters on the chest. Reid thinks it might be his favorite, though he also likes the one that has the solar system on it but all the planets have smiley faces.

Reid moves Nora back into her crib and zips her into the sleep sack that used to be Michael's. It is basically a duffel bag made of polar fleece with holes cut out for the baby's arms and head. Sometimes when he zips Nora up, it reminds him of packing his go-bag, but sometimes he just thinks, Hey, this is really comfortable.

Nora likes to sleep with both of her arms raised upwards, like Superman or a tiny, victorious boxer. An infant's brain produces two to three billion synapses per second, so even when she is asleep, she is learning things, absorbing the secrets of the universe.

Reid doesn't let this opportunity go to waste.

Every night he presses a kiss to each of his daughter's palms and says, "Goodnight, Nora. I love you."

He never, ever wants her to forget it. 

 

 ######

 

T. S. Eliot wrote, _April is the cruellest month._

Reid does not exactly have any favorable things to say about February either.

February means Reid goes back to work. He teaches at the Academy on Tuesdays and Fridays. He lectures at Georgetown University the rest of the week, a job recommended by Alex Blake. He is at an age now where most of the cadets and students are younger than him instead of his contemporaries, so they take him seriously and regard him with a certain respect that he wasn't used to getting five, ten years earlier.

It also helps that he looks like what he is, a sleep-deprived single dad with a baby whose sleep routine has completely regressed after her very first cold. His students, his colleagues, even his supervisors respond to this sympathetically. They are willing to overlook when Reid spaces out during lectures on language acquisition or frontal lobe damage. Not often, but sometimes, when the weather is especially bad, he ends his class early so that he can beat the traffic on the I-95 and get back to Nora on time.

February means Nora starts day care. Reid finds one that is affordable and along his commute, with caregivers who share his philosophy on child-rearing. Each child is assigned a primary carer, so he isn't too worried that Nora will be ignored and left hungry or cold or wet. He has already met Rachel, a grad student who wants some real world experience to put off finishing her thesis.  

"Oh, this is going to be real world experience for sure," he says.

Rachel raises her doubly-pierced eyebrow and tells him to bring it on. She knows infant CPR and has read Piaget, though she doesn't necessarily agree with his theories. She promises Reid to text him throughout the day and send pictures so that he knows how Nora is doing.

In theory, Reid has no trouble believing that his daughter will be well looked after when he is at work.

What actually happens is that as soon as he passes Nora to Rachel, the baby starts to cry.

Reid fights the instinct to reach for his baby, and it's killing him. "It's okay, Nora," he sing-songs, entirely unconvincingly. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

At three months, Nora is too young to have separation anxiety. According to the baby books, she should not be exhibiting any signs of separation anxiety until she is at least seven months old. But then again, as JJ has established, the baby books are full of lies. Reid knows this because his daughter's eyes are searching for him frantically as he starts towards the door.

He takes one last look at Nora, who is now full-on sobbing, actual tears rolling down her cheeks, and he ducks out before he loses his reserve. The entire drive to Quantico, he feels like the shittiest person in the world.

Reid buys a chicken and avocado sandwich from the cafeteria at lunch and eats it alone in his new office as scrolls through the pictures Rachel has sent. Nora does not seem to be in distress, Reid notices. She doesn't look happy, but she's not _suffering_. He wonders if he is setting the bar too low.

The next day is not any better, or the next. Rachel tries her best to distract Nora whenever Reid needs to sneak out of the room, but it's hard. Leaving is hard. Leaving his child is especially hard. Reid will never understand how his father made it look so easy.

February means his mother is having a bad spell. Diana forgets who he is entirely and refuses to take his calls. When Reid tries again a couple of days later, his mother only remembers that he has not visited her for a long time.

"I miss you, Spencer. I haven't seen you in ages," she says crossly.

"I miss you too, Mom," he says, "but I can't really travel at the moment. I have a baby, she's too little to travel."

Diana gasps with delight. "You have a baby? That's _wonderful_!"  

It must be the fourth, maybe fifth time Reid tells her about Nora. "Her name is Eleanor."

"Eleanor." His mother's voice is dreamy. "You know, that is the name I would've given you if you'd been a girl."

"Yes, Mom. I know."

February is a shit month and Reid is not sorry when it is over.

 

 ######

 

Nora has a reaction to her 4-month shots. It's not unusual, says Dr. Huang, who loves her double-negatives. If Reid had a moment to himself, he might profile her to try to figure out why.

He does not have a moment to himself because Nora demands to be held, whimpering pathetically whenever he puts her down. She is running a low fever and her cheeks are too warm when he presses them against his own.

Dr. Huang advises to keep her cool with lukewarm baths, so Reid fills the whale-shaped tub with two inches of water and sits Nora inside. Using the rubber alligator that was a gift from Henry, he scoops up a little water and then pours it out of the alligator's mouth, over her feverish body. Nora watches, transfixed.

He's toweling the baby dry when the doorbell rings, followed by a series of knocks, each more urgent than the last.

"Just a second!" Reid yells into the hallway. He bundles Nora up in the towel and runs to the door. He opens it to find Emily standing there, hands in the pockets of her coat.

"Hey, I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I'd stop by," she says, which is a blatant lie because no one is ever in Reid's neighborhood. She notices the baby pressed against his chest. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, no, it's fine. We were just finishing up her bath."

Nora sticks two fingers into her mouth and laughs, the first time since her shots this morning.

Reid tells Emily to make herself at home while he gets Nora diapered and dressed. He's surprised that Emily has come unannounced but he is glad to be given the opportunity to catch up with one of his best friends. That, and he still wants to win Emily over with his daughter.

"Can you be extra cute for Emily?" Reid asks, snapping Nora's bib into place. It looks like a fox and it matches the owls on her pajamas. The theme for tonight's party is apparently woodland animals.

"Bahbahbahda-eee," Nora replies, and reaches for his chin.

"I'll take that as a yes." He kisses her head, which is not as warm as before, and carries her into the living room.

Emily is perched on the edge of his sofa and staring into space, both elbows on her knees. She gets up when she sees Reid, and this time she looks at Nora, really looks at her. "She's grown. She's grown a lot."

"I had absolutely nothing to do with it," Reid deadpans, and he loves it, the sound of Emily's chuckle. "Do you want to hold her? She's not as scary and floppy as before."

She nods hesitantly, and Reid breaks out the Purell, because he is _that_ parent. He passes the baby to Emily, who doesn't seem quite sure where to put her arms so that both she and Nora are comfortable.

Nora senses Emily's unease and starts to fuss. She kicks both legs outwards and arches her entire body, trying to get away. Reid takes her back before it can escalate into a full meltdown, and the way she calms instantly in his arms is better than physics magic.

"Reid, sit down," Emily says.

Well.

This can't be good.

Reid nudges Sophie the Giraffe No. 3 off the ottoman and sits facing Emily, spreading his hand out against Nora's back. He feels the beat of his daughter's heart in his palm.

"Lindsey Vaughn committed suicide." Emily watches his reaction as she continues. "She didn't leave a note."

"How do you know it's a suicide?" Reid thinks, _What about Jack Vaughn? What happens to him now?_

"It doesn't matter, Reid. She's dead. It means she will never be tried for the murders she committed, or for kidnapping your mother, or setting you up in Mexico. I'm sorry. You'll never be able to see justice for what you've been through."

 _That's it?_  Relief flows through him. "Emily, you caught her. You saved my life. You saved my mother's life. There is nothing more I could ask for. I don't need a jury telling me that Lindsey Vaughn is responsible for everything she did. I already got justice, I got something even better: I got you guys and I got my mom back. I got Nora, who is the _best_."

Emily purses her lips the way she always does when she's unsettled. "You paid for Cat Adams' burial."

Reid's voice does not waver. "You paid for Ian Doyle's."

She looks angry for a moment, then her expression softens. "I just thought if Declan has any questions one day, if he wants to know about his father ..."

"I get that, Emily," Reid says, glancing down at Nora. "Believe me, I get that."

Emily swallows. Her voice is thin and edgy when she speaks again. "I feel like I've lost you. We got your mother back, but we lost you anyway. Not because of Nora, this was even before her. You came back but you weren't really there and I'll always wonder if it's because I didn't get you out soon enough. I'll wonder if I've failed Hotch somehow, by not keeping everyone together.

"When I came back to the BAU, I thought, I thought it would be like going home again, but it's not. Hotch is gone. Morgan is gone. You're gone. Rossi just told me he bought a fucking vineyard in North Carolina so he'll be gone soon. I know that's what life is, people coming and going, and I don't begrudge any of you for it. But I see Nora and I know however better I could've done, it wouldn't have changed anything. I was always going to lose you. You'd think that would make me feel better, but it doesn't."

"You didn't lose me," Reid tells her. "I was lost already. Yeah, sure, I was out of Millburn physically, but the second I closed my eyes, I saw Delgado bleed out in front of me. I saw myself in that laundry room. I saw myself with my hands around Cat Adams' throat, knowing exactly where to press and how long I would have to do it for before she stops breathing, and I know I would've done it. Sometimes I dream that I actually do it. I kill her. And when I wake up, I don't regret it. I don't regret it because she wanted Nora to die. 

"You didn't lose me, Emily, because I didn't want to come back. I just didn't know what I could do with my life otherwise. The BAU is all I've ever known."

"Until Nora," says Emily.

"Until Nora," says Reid.

"I'm wary of her," Emily confesses. "That's the word. It's not that I don't like her, I'm just wary. Besides, who can resist those cheeks?"

"No one can resist those cheeks. They're made of kryptonite." He suddenly, desperately needs coffee. "Do you want something to drink, Emily?"

"Maybe just water."

Instead of putting Nora in her bouncer, Reid offers her once more to Emily, who balks. "I don't want to get her upset again."

"The trick is not to be afraid of her," says Reid. "If you stay calm, she'll be calm. If you're nervous, she'll sense it and get worked up."

Nora searches Emily's face for reassurance as she is settled into Emily's arms.

"Reid," Emily says after a beat, "how are you not absolutely terrified?"

"I am," he says. "I just bluff my way through every day."

His kitchen is a travesty and he can't find any clean glasses, so he rinses the one he usually uses and pours Emily her water. He fixes a cup of lukewarm coffee for himself.  When he returns to the living room, Emily is stroking the perfect shell-curve of Nora's ear, and Reid knows right then she's a goner.

"You can love her, you know." Reid shoves aside the pile of laundry so he can sit next to them. Being a parent is mostly doing laundry and not sleeping. "She's not a monster. I used to worry, too, but we are not simply the sum of our parts. Nora is more than just DNA and genetics. Having said that, genetics is the only reason I even got to keep her. I did not have automatic parental rights, because Cat and I, we were obviously not married."

Emily rolls her eyes.

"I had to petition to the Court. If I hadn't, Nora would've gone into foster care first, before she could be adopted, because the state's priority is family reunification."

"Cat still has family?"

"Her father." Reid stares at his coffee. "He's out there. He's never been found, but he's still out there. I couldn't let there be even the slightest chance that he comes near my child. I wasn't even sure I wanted her then. I just wanted, I _needed_ to protect her. But I love her now, I love her so much, Em. It's like she took all the broken pieces of me and put them back together."

Emily is silent. The only sound between them is the refrigerator humming.

"You're one of my best friends," Reid continues. "And she's my daughter. I really wish you could love her too."

They sit like that, quietly, for a long time.

As Emily pulls her coat on, she asks, "Reid, are you happy?"

Reid considers this for a long minute.

"Yes, I am," he finally answers. "I think I am. Not all of the time, but mostly, yeah. I didn't used to think I would ever be capable of being just happy. There was always my mom, and the job, and Gideon — "

_You dying. Hotch leaving without having the chance to say goodbye. Maeve._

"But what happened when I was in Millburn taught me that I am capable of things I never even dreamed of, ugly things that I can't pretend I didn't do. It's the same with Nora. She taught me I am capable of things I could've never imagined, like being happy."

Emily sighs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. For the first time, Reid notices the lines around her eyes.

"You didn't lose me," he repeats. "You will never lose me. Don't be a stranger. I'm always up for free babysitting."

 

#####

 

Without warning, it is spring. Cherry blossom season.

Garcia invites them all to a picnic by Hains Point. She puts Rossi in charge of the wine, Lewis and Alvez in charge of refreshments. JJ and Reid are responsible for bringing along adorable children to be fawned over by everybody else.

"In Japan, this is called _hanami_ ," Reid explains to Henry and Nora. Michael has sprinted off into the distance, JJ hot on his heels. "It literally means 'flower viewing.' These trees here came all the way from Tokyo in 1912, so they're older than all of us."

"Even Rossi?" asks Henry.

"Even Rossi," says Reid.

Emily shows up in jeans and a Yale sweatshirt and they all forget, for a couple of hours, that she is actually their boss and has the power to make them all do paperwork. Not Reid, but he has to do paperwork anyway.

They drink, they eat, they laugh, they field a couple dozen questions Henry has about Japan and which Pokemon he would find there. They watch and cheer as Nora performs her latest stunt — rolling over from belly to back.

They have such a good time that Reid is almost sorry to leave.

"You can go but leave the baby," Garcia says. "My sweet little butterbean. You can't take her away from me."

"We can look after her for you," Emily says, unexpectedly the first to offer. "We've got JJ with us so we can't screw it up that bad."

"Thanks, guys, but I need Nora with me. I'll definitely take a raincheck on the babysitting though."

"I will dress you up in so many costumes," Garcia tells Nora soberly.

It takes an hour to reach the cemetery. The lawns have just been watered and drops of water glint like diamonds in the afternoon sun. Orange and pink flowers line the way to the headstone he is looking for, as if God had painted him an arrow.

When Reid finally arrives, he is taken aback by how much he still misses her, even after all these years.

"Hi Maeve," he says.

Reid lays a blanket in front of her headstone and sits down so he can maneuver Nora out of her carrier. She waves her fist at him as he struggles with the straps and the buckles and curses the manufacturer under his breath. He might need another PhD just to work out this goddamn Baby Bjorn.

At last, Nora is freed from her confines. She can sit up on her own now, but sometimes tips over like she's had too much to drink. Reid props the diaper bag behind her and gives her a rattle that goes straight into her mouth.

"This is Nora," he says to Maeve, "my daughter. She is small but she is fierce. She likes the color red. She knows parlor tricks. Watch this."

 "Nora," he calls, and she looks up from her drool-sticky rattle to beam at him. He leans over and strokes the bottoms of her feet before pulling the sock off her left foot in one short, swift swoop and dangling it in front of her.

Nora squeals with delight, her laughter reverberating through the still silence of the cemetery. She is still laughing as Reid puts the sock back onto her foot. It is green with robots on it; the other one is designed to look like she's wearing Mary Janes.

None of Nora's socks match. It's because they keep getting lost in the wash rather than Reid passing on his fashion sense. Emily did say once that is how they can tell Nora is his daughter.

Reid reaches for the Mary Jane sock and tugs it off Nora's foot, eliciting another round of ecstatic laughter. He'd like to think that somewhere, Maeve is laughing too.

He knows that Maeve would have loved Nora regardless of how Nora came to be. He had said to Hotch once, a long time ago, that if Maeve hadn't died, he might have had children of his own. After Maeve, he never thought he would have children at all, but then Nora happened.

This is who he is now: Dr. Spencer Reid, PhD, Nora's dad, Diana's son. Profiler, professor, friend.

He knows Maeve is proud of who he is.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This fic was inspired by the soundtrack to _Storks_ , which is a great movie by the way. 
> 
> 2\. I only skimmed-watched Season 12, mostly for Emily. After the Season 12 finale, everyone in the forums said that Reid keeping the baby would be the _worst idea ever_ , so immediately I decided to write it. 
> 
> 3\. I know absolutely nothing about child custody law in the United States, and I hope I never have to. Nor do I know anything about U.S. geography. All mistakes are mine.


End file.
